Page 3399 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 17 August 2011
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speech quite clearly why we will not be supporting the first part of the amendment, which is in relation to Ms Scattergood. I have said that this case was not handled at all well and, I believe, had very poor outcomes. It does not reflect well on the public service. I have indicated that we will be covering this in my motion later on today. Part of that is about reviewing and changing the Public Interest Disclosure Act—not just taking up one case, but reviewing the whole act.
Mr Seselja interjecting—
MS HUNTER: We need to be very clear here, Mr Seselja, and you need to actually understand what is going on here. There was an inquiry that went through that act. What you are asking is for legislation to be breached by tabling those documents. You need to understand that legislation. We need to ensure that overall we have a culture right across the public service that we are not just going to pick up individual cases but that we are, in fact, going to do a proper and thorough review of the Public Interest Disclosure Act—and not just that, that we are going to send a very clear message to the directors-general that it is not good enough at the moment.
We need to have an improvement in culture, a change in culture from the top to the bottom of the public service around their attitude towards those who blow the whistle and also towards people who bring complaints, whether they are employees within the public service or members of the public. There needs to be a change. It is going to have to involve a cultural change and it is going to have to involve education and ongoing training and support so that everybody understands what their rights, responsibilities and roles are under the Public Interest Disclosure Act—the current act and a future act. It is also going to mean training and support, education and ongoing monitoring in the change of culture around complaints and complaint handling within the public service.
My colleague Ms Bresnan will speak to the case of Mr Buchanan. Again, I spoke on that in my earlier speech around the fact that we should not be taking individual cases and prosecuting them in the Assembly. We need to be very careful. My colleague Ms Bresnan outlined earlier, when a similar motion in this regard came up in the Assembly, a concern about the individuals at the other end of this. We would not want to see a case where members of this place saw a bit of a political opportunity in prosecuting cases within the Assembly when, at the end of the day, all that did was to have very negative impacts on the individuals involved. There are other avenues for people to take up their cases, which should be supported. Those options and opportunities should be provided for them. Those other avenues have more protection and ensure that people are not put into circumstances and processes that they do not fully understand, where they have no real understanding of the impact that could occur if their case and their life were laid out in an Assembly inquiry.
That is why we will not be supporting the amendment today. As I said, we are very concerned about public interest disclosure legislation. We are concerned about complaints handling. We are concerned about freedom of information and making sure we have a response to the thorough report that was presented by the justice and community safety committee. These are all part of that agenda around ensuring that we have openness in government, that there is accountability and that we have robust mechanisms to ensure that. That is what we will be pursuing through my motion this
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